Man, you touched on some great topics here, almost too much. I think we could talk about pieces of you article for hours on end, so I'll try to keep to the point here. I fully agree that we need a system where people are based on merits, but then again how do we determine merits? does getting a good grade on a science test prove that someone is good at science, or that said person is just good at memorizing information? The school system as it is, needs a whole lot of fixing. We teach to the general and don't do enough to recognize that students re not all the same. Then there is the issue of public schooling vs private. Who is receiving the better education, is the government purposely keeping certain schools down so the children coming out of them are not able to compete with children from elite families?
What should we be teaching in school? Arguments can be made that coding language is now just as important as English or Math and yet no computer programming courses are mandatory anywhere.
I have just scratched the surface on the education problem we face and there are so many other points that I would like to discuss but to avoid turning this into a novel, I'll stop here, look forward to you continuing this discussion in future posts.
Equality of opportunity is what we should strive for as long as we realize that equality of outcome is not what we want.